This article from the Scotsman May 1 2022 suggests that the Flow Country is still "on track" for consideration at a 2024 WHC - which requires that the Nomination be handed over to the UK government at the end of this year.

The raison d'etre for the report was that "to support the bid, a team of independent scientific experts has just completed a series of assessments to determine how the habitat might respond to climate change impacts over the next three decades. Their findings are considered "hugely significant" in boosting the case to the United Nations, which if successful would see the Flow Country become the world's first peatland to be inscribed on the World Heritage list"

Note the comment that these "assessments" are "a method usually reserved for analysing sites which have already achieved World Heritage status."

I wonder if the "ante" is being upped for nominations (both Natural and Cultural?) and that a thorough assessment of potential impact of "Climate Change" and mitigation actions being taken will become a required aspect of ALL nominations? I have had a quick look at the AB evaluations for 5 of the 2021 successful nominations (Slate, Rosia Montana, Nice, SHUM and Ramappa) and only the Slate and SHUM evaluations contained a section on Climate change (and then. in the Slate case, only the ICOMOS evaluation - not that of IUCN).

It would seem a "no brainer" to do so. If it is important for existing WHS (and UNESCO is "big" on Climate change) then it must surely be so for upcoming ones and it is no use closing the stable door after inscription! Doing such studies and carrying out (or at least preparing to do so) identified actions requires extra effort, skill, cost (and bureaucracy?) and places yet another potential "barrier" in front of developing counties trying to produce successful nominations. It would seem better for everyone if a single, as simple as possible, approach could be adopted which provided a degree of objective "comparability"?

I note that the "technique" used on the Flow Country nomination - "Climate Vulnerability Index" or "CVI" was developed at the James Cook University in Australia and that ICOMOS (but not IUCN, despite the technique's use on both natural and cultural sites!) figures in the supporters of the technique as shown by its logo in the Web Site for the technique. Being "brought in" (or "bought in"!!!) to do the study for Scotland's "Flow Country" Nomination must have been a bit of a coup for this North Queensland institution?? It has already been used for existing WHS at Wadden Sea, Orkney and Shark Bay. Scotland must have quite liked what came out of the Orkney study to lead it to choose the same approach for the Flow Country.

I spotted in the ICOMOS 2021 Annual Report - https://issuu.com/icomos/docs/ra_icomos-2021_en_pao3-ter_hd_issuu t- that the UK is also supporting the CVI-Africa project which has also looked at the vulnerability of Sukur Cultural Landscape and Kilwa Kisiwani. Seems like very much the norm going forwards.